Mutual Understanding

Sandra is one of my favorite people in the universe. Apart from being really wise and a gifted writer, she’s also very true. Sandra is a person who accepts the reality of life’s boundaries without allowing them to make her or her friends feel hopeless. She speaks up for me when I’m too nervous to try for an opportunity that is good for me. One of my favorite things about our friendship is where the mutual understandings lie. We are both fat femmes of color and on those lines we can understand each other in a way that others often cannot. We can talk about food without being afraid of being shamed for it. We can talk about clothing and who sells (or should sell) in our sizes without feeling weird or whiny or limited. We can talk about how our physical appearances do or don’t affect our respective careers and where that intersects with our respective races and ethnicities. She’s a Pisces and I’m a Virgo. While we’re on opposite ends of expression, feeling, and thought, we are able to use the very obvious differences in our personalities to help move fluidly through all sorts of conversations, everything in balance.

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Rookie is an online magazine and book series for teenagers. Each month, a different editorial theme drives the writing, photography, and artwork that we publish. Learn more about us here, and find out how to submit your work here!